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Showing posts with the label Castelvecchio

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

Verona, more than Romeo and Juliet

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We had a lovely stay in Verona. I arrived around 8.30 p.m. and it was still very warm. Martin met me, and we drove to a parking house, left the car there and walked over the 'Ponte Nuovo del Popolo' into the historical centre of the city. We were first heading to our room which Martin had booked by Airbnb (first try), so I was quite excited when he directed me to the main square, Piazza delle Erbe, and pointed up towards windows, just below the roof. Wow, an old house overlooking the piazza, not bad. It is lovely to stay on the top floor, it is just that it was five stories up and no elevator! What don't we all do for a little bit of character setting? Piazza delle Erbe, our flat; top three rooms on the left building A room with a view The piazza delle Erbe market We had the whole apartment to ourselves (the other guests had cancelled). Our room overlooked the piazza, and my first thought was,  A Room with a View  E.M. Forster's novel about Florence. Well, ...